1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods, computer programs and systems for providing User-Generated Content (UGC), such as ratings and reviews, which is trusted by internet users.
2. Description of the Related Art
Internet users are interested in user generated content, such as product and service ratings and reviews, but performing a comprehensive search for such content requires significant effort and time. Furthermore, it is difficult to determine what content is trustworthy. Today, user generated content is fragmented across many websites. For example, ratings and reviews for hotels are available from Yahoo!™ Travel, Frommer's™, Expedia™, etc. In the restaurant area, ratings and reviews are available from Yahoo!™ Local, Yelp™, etc. In the online shopping area, product ratings and reviews are available from Yahoo!™ Shopping, Epinions™, CNET™, etc.
There is no easy method of searching across these siloed sites. For example, a user interested in information about San Francisco hotels has essentially two options: searching for “San Francisco hotel reviews” on a web search engine such as Yahoo!™, or searching individual websites containing travel information, such as Yahoo!™ Travel and TripAdvisor™. The first option requires filtering out irrelevant entries in the search result. The second option is time consuming because it requires searching a plurality of websites, one at a time. Furthermore, the second option requires that the user be aware of all the major websites for the particular area of interest, such as travel or hotels in the examples mentioned above.
Additionally, there are vast amounts of available user generated content, complicating the problem of finding the right information because of the stringent filtering required to get relevant information. For example, if a user is looking for dining ideas in San Francisco, where should the user start? There are reviews for hundreds to thousands of restaurants and tens of cuisine styles in San Francisco on each of the major content sites. If the user is looking for general ideas, the search criteria is left wide open making it difficult for a search mechanism to find the desired information according to the user intent.
Another problem confronting a user looking for ratings and reviews is that ratings and reviews are essentially anonymous. For each review, there is usually a username shown, but typically the content reader does not know the identity associated with a username and therefore there is no basis on which to judge the trustworthiness of the author and her reviews. User-generated content can be very biased. For example, typically only residents with negative experiences post on apartment rating sites. In contrast, some hotel review sites have been known to have hotel staff anonymously post positive comments about their own hotels.
Another aspect of getting good UGC is that the information posted is only as good as the level of expertise of the author. To be up-to-date in certain areas, users must spend considerable effort to keep up with a product or service category. For example, tech gadgets and fashion are two areas that require significant time, research effort, and taste, to keep up-to-date with trends. Most people do not have the time required to keep up with the changes. However, people often have friends that have the expertise desired and whose opinion is highly valued. Today, there is no easy way to access content generated by a user's friends. The only way is to email links identifying content locations.
It is in this context that embodiments of the invention arise.